My Blog – Gregor Holzer

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Category Archives: ESX

Well, at last the wait is over. vSphere5 is now available to download and evaluate from VMware.com website. I was actually expecting the bits to drop on Wednesday, that’s what my (no so) reliable sources were telling me. Who knows perhaps they were released at 23.59 on Wednesday!

I wouldn’t know – I was tucked up in bed by 10pm. I’m not one of those people who sleep in a tent outside an Apple store, if you catch my drift.

Of course I went to download vSphere5 I wasn’t able to. You see I’m neither a customer or partner, and therefore my account is NOT “activated” for customer downloads.

That’s a webpage I’ve been looking at for some years. So at the moment I’m downloading the eval, which looks ALMOST fully functional (Update: I’m not seeing the “Depot” version of ESX5i that’s used with Auto Deploy…). That will last for 60 days. After that I don’t really know what I will do. I will probably sign up for a mailinator account, and just keep on evaluating vSphere5. I’m not really sure where I’m heading on licensing with VMware. I’m no longer a VMware Certified Instructor so I’m not on the email list for education licenses, and I don’t know how long it will take for my vExpert licenses to come through.

My task for today once ESX5i installable has downloaded is to test the GA build of the VMware Hypervisor against the Ultimate Deployment Appliance. Yes, that’s right the UDA has a new build number (Build 20) which adds support for ESX5i. But I need to validate it against the GA, before Carl and I make it publicly available. Not that I expect anyone to deploying ESX5i in anger today – except hard-core fanbios like me of course!

The other thing I’m trying to do is get a preview of chapter 1/2 of my “Hotel California” book out on RTFM. Why? Well, chapter 2 has lots of vSphere5 good stuff, and don’t want to sit on it until next year – because well, by then it will be common knowledge….